Intel 8th gen Kaby Lake-R vs 7th gen Kaby Lake performance comparison

[Redaktion]

The new Intel 8th generation processors have started showing up in notebooks, and it has piqued our interest to see how well they fare in comparison to their contemporaries from the previous generation. With Kaby Lake-R, Intel has upped the number of cores to 4 while retaining the same TDP values — albeit at reduced base clocks. Where does this place the new chips with respect to the existing 15W and 45W variants? Should you be considering laptops based on the 8th generation Kaby Lake-R processors? We give the early verdict.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-8th-gen-Kaby-Lake-R-vs-7th-gen-Kaby-Lake-performance-comparison.244318.0.html

[Big T]

Imagine a better cooled Lenovo T570 with a 8550u at 28W TDP limit, combined with a mx150 4GB(should be possible), 32 gb ddr4, UHD 100% adobergb semi glossy panel, 1tb Nvme SSD & a couple of external 72Whr batteries for on the road. Now, that would be the endgame portable powerhouse with enough battery for days without charge.  8) We might have to wait untill canonlake to happen since the T570 was struggling to cool the Kaby Lake CPU's already... Sigh... Always the waiting games with this 2K+ Laptop tech.

[Thesis]

The amount of throttling I see is no different from what I saw in some H series processors. What I hope is that the OEMs do what Lenovo did with its Thinkpad series laptops and allow the tdp up to 25W. Apple's 13" laptops will benefit because of that extra headroom.

[Bill]

I agree that I would like to see these new chips configured for 25W TDP, especially in laptops without discrete GPUs.  These laptops will need proper cooling as well.  I recall the X1 Carbon has significant throttling issues when paired with any i7 processor.  In which case, what is the point of the increased TDP?

Much of the performance difference observed in this article between the iGPU of the 7200U and 8250U is attributable to the different memory.  The X1 Yoga uses LPDDR3 1866 and the Acer uses DDR4 at an unclaimed speed, likely 2400 MT/s.

[Thesis]

Bill, that's a good point. But Lenovo implemented the unrestricted TDP well on its T470. Although notebookcheck reviewed the i5 version, the i5 version was stable under load and not even close to the regular 15W limit. That is great use of space, cooling and optimization. I would have loved to see them review the i7 version, but in theory...if the i5 wasn't hitting the limit, I think the extra headroom would have allowed the i7 to perform over load.

Because of these preliminary results, I do think we will see aggressive pricing for the remaining skylake quad core laptops vs. these new ones, which is good for us. Sure this is about 70-80 points higher than the i5-6300HQ, but many of the i5-6300hq laptops reviewed performed more stable over load, which matters. It gets even more interesting with the 6700HQ laptops and there are a few of those I'd get over the new chips for the right price and if it meets my use case. I like the 2 in 1s with discrete graphics concept for my use needs, but if I get a bargain on a 6700hq which is light with Thunderbolt 3, I won't turn it down.

[Perry]

Hi there,
I really love your review.
I was thinking to buy a MacBook Pro 13 to replace my old MacBook Air. But I see the 8250U with 40% increase in performance, sounds amazing. What about the battery life? Will the 2 more cores increase power consumption?
Do you think it worth the wait to buy a MBP 13 next year? Probably another 6 month waiting.......
Thanks

[OtterNZ]

Interesting comparison, thanks for the article!

[Hifihedgehog]

For some reason, I am not seeing the Geekbench 4.1 benchmarks you reference in the article. Where are they?

[Vaidyanathan]

Hi there,
I really love your review.
I was thinking to buy a MacBook Pro 13 to replace my old MacBook Air. But I see the 8250U with 40% increase in performance, sounds amazing. What about the battery life? Will the 2 more cores increase power consumption?
Do you think it worth the wait to buy a MBP 13 next year? Probably another 6 month waiting.......
Thanks

Thanks for the feedback, Perry. The 8th generation seems to hold a lot of promise. Notebooks have just started to incorporate 8th gen Intel CPUs so it is still early to comment on battery life improvements given the fact that there are many factors that influence it. We will soon be reviewing many upcoming laptops with 8th gen CPUs, including the next iteration of the MacBook Pro, so do stay tuned for that.

[Vaidyanathan]

Interesting comparison, thanks for the article!

Thank you, OtterNZ  :)